


One Of Many Circles

by FroggyHopscotch, Go0se



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Character Study, Family, Gen, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 22:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14006157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroggyHopscotch/pseuds/FroggyHopscotch, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: Link had started conversing with the flock of crows around the Black Order's new headquarters out of necessity. A science division experiment had gone awry and left him physically shaped as a bird for several weeks; thus, he hadn’t had much choice. When he had shifted back to his real form, the bird’s language had somehow carried over, and by then it had become a habit to spent time with them.He had been working with the flock for a little under a year when the first real disaster struck.





	One Of Many Circles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FroggyHopscotch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FroggyHopscotch/gifts).



> This fic is entirely based on/written for a steadily growing Animal Potion AU of Froggy's and which we talk about on and off (/whenever one of us finds a funny animal picture). Basically what it says on the tin: _A 'freak' potions accident leaves Link and Lavi stuck shaped as a crow and a rabbit respectively for a month. During which time, they find themselves adopted by the "locals". Months later, still able to understand his feathered companions, Link faces some of the unintended results of life as Flock-Uncle._
> 
> Happy start of break, Froggy. <3 I bring a tale you've already heard.

Link had been working with the crow flock around the Black Order’s European headquarters for a little under a year when the first real disaster struck.

  
It was an ordinary Saturday morning up until the incident. Link had been mid-jog around the headquarters’ grounds, as he always was between 7a.m. and 7:45. Allen was still asleep in their shared room, also as always, and would stay as such until at least nine. Since Link was both alone and unconcerned about accidentally neglecting his post, he let himself relax slightly.  He frequently enjoyed his runs. Especially in late fall. They cleared his mind, and besides, the crisp morning air and quiet agreed with him.  
He had just hit the densest part of the forest that the jogging path ran through when a cry stopped him mid-stride.  
“Mother!”

The dirt and dried leaves crunched sharply under Link’s shoes as he slid to a stop. He looked around himself in alarm. “Who's there?”

  
No one answered. A moment later the voice cried out again. “Mother!”

  
There wasn't a member of the Order who would speak like that unless during a battle. For that matter, no one would have any business being deep in the woods barely after the break of day. He must be hearing one of the crows, Link realized. He'd gotten used to the event in the past several months; however every so often it still took him by surprise.

But the voice wasn’t coming from the air. Concern growing, Link stopped looking around at his eye height and began to search the ground.

  
A nearby bush rustled. Link knelt quickly and lifted up the lowest branches, moving the leaves out of the way.  
Sure enough a crow was wobbling along the forest floor, breathing heavily. It was Kaf, one of the flock’s youngest. Link recognized the pattern on his wings.  
As Link lifted the leaves, Kaf went sharply silent. He stepped backwards and puffed all his feathers, spreading one of his wings out wide like he'd try to hit Link with it. His other wing he kept tucked into his side.

Then he cocked his head and all of his feathers calmed. “Uncle Link,” he said, sounding relieved. “It's just you. Good-- good eating.”

“Good morning to you, too.” Link offered Kaf his hand flat on the ground. “Why are you out by yourself?” He asked first of all, leaving out the _why were you calling like that, why aren't you flying, why aren't you asleep with the others--_ “These woods can be dangerous for you in the dark.”  
Kaf shook his head. It was an oddly human gesture that many of the flock, especially the younger birds, had picked up since the end of the whole affair (or rather since Link had changed back into his actual form). “I know,” he croaked miserably.

 

Link frowned as Kaf clambered awkwardly onto his arm. Kaf was always more likely to be contrite than the other birds his age, but none of the crows usually admitted to mistakes so readily. He also couldn't seem to perch properly on Link’s sleeve.

Not quite daring to pick his arm up when the bird was so unsteady, Link settled on pulling Kaf out from under the bush so he could see him more clearly, and then set him back on the ground.

His frown deepened as he looked Kaf over. Kaf was holding his right wing awkwardly close to his side, and seemed to be favouring his right leg as well. He still hadn’t caught his breath. He was also shaking, maybe for whatever reason he’d been foraging through the undergrowth to begin with. Link reached out to him to try and lift his wing, and Kaf obligingly kept still, although he croaked miserably again. “What on earth happened—"  
Link’s fingers brushed against wetness on Kaf’s side. He drew back instinctively, and they came away tacky with blood. Cold dread rose in his throat.  
“An owl,” Kaf answered heavily.  
Link swallowed. “I… see.”

 

Before his run, as always, he’d taken a towel from the linen storage of the training room. He pulled it off his shoulders then and shook it out from its tight wrap, using it as a sling to pick up his young friend. Link lifted him as gently as he could, but Kaf still cried out.  
Link got to his feet with Kaf cradled to his chest in the towel. He had no idea what to do.

Not wanting to waste time deliberating, he started heading swiftly back the way he’d came. “Let’s get you inside,” he told Kaf, laying a careful hand over the bird to try and reduce how much he was jostled. “At least it will be warm.”    
Kaf still trembled, but he nestled closer to Link’s chest nonetheless.

 

As he hastily made his way back, possibilities ran through Link’s mind. His first idea was somehow finding Master Zhu; but that was ridiculous, he was in China still and couldn’t be called through the Ark for something like this. Link’s next thought was of the science section. Surely one of them had worked with animals before? But he wasn’t in much of a position to be asking any of them any favours. Link himself didn't know anything about such kinds of first aid.

He would simply have to take Kaf back to his (and Allen’s) room so he could be warm and hope for the best.

 

It was only when Link got to the door he’d left by that morning that his embarrassment caught up with him. It was hardly proper for an Inspector to come in from his morning jog clutching a bird to his front.  
Flushing slightly, Link went inside anyway. He was unlikely to meet anyone except for the custodial staff of the Headquarters this early in the morning, he hoped.

 

Mercifully, thank God, he didn’t encounter another person all the way up the two staircases and through three hallway turns back to his and Allen’s room.

Kaf had gone still and silent in his arms. He disliked being under a roof, as all of the crows did. They were only truly comfortable in a building if they were in Link and Allen’s bedroom, which had become a familiar space; and even then some of the flock refused to come inside, preferring to perch on the windowsill like a jury.

Link opened the door to said room, trying to be as quick as possible while still moving carefully. “We’re almost there,” he told Kaf under his breath. Out loud he cautioned, “Allen? I apologise but you need to wake--”

The room was empty. Allen’s bed, still conspicuously rumpled, was extra empty. There was absolutely no sign he’d been sound asleep in it not twenty minutes before.  
Still in the doorway, Link felt annoyance and indignation wash out the other emotions in his chest for a moment. Had the boy been _faking sleep_ , what, this whole time? Thinking he could pull one over on Link every morning? Oh, they were going to be having _words_ about this--

  
Kaf suddenly coughed, his whole body twitching as his pinned wings tried to flinch outwards. He coughed several times, then quieted, shivering harder than before. “Mother,” he whimpered into the fabric of the towel.  
Guilt clenched around Link’s heart horribly. He stepped inside the room, shut the door firmly behind him, turned his eyes away from the bed in which his charge was supposed to be sleeping, and instead hurried over to the cast iron radiator on the far wall.  
With one hand he took the chair from his desk and pulled it over. “There you are,” he said to Kaf as he set him down on the chair’s cushion, angling the chair so Kaf would get as much warmth as possible. “Just-- try not to move too much.”

When he was sure Kaf was steady Link let him go, and then went immediately to the wide window behind the beds. He had gotten into the habit of leaving it open during the warmer nights,  in case any of the crows came to visit. Now he swiftly opened it the rest of the way and leaned out. “Kyp!” He called. “Kyp, I need to speak with you!”

The young male crow had a favourite roost on the balcony above, and usually hung around in the morning.  
Sure enough, a small black-feathered head popped out from around the corner of a pallister farther along the ledge. A second later Kyp hopped properly into view, coming up to Link cheerfully. “Gutes Essen,” he called. And then he stopped, staring at Link’s bloodied hand clenched on the windowsill. He cocked his head and looked back up at Link with wide eyes.  
“Kaf is hurt,” Link said hurriedly. “I found him in the woods-- please, go get Erkala, get anyone--”

  
He stopped talking as Kyp took flight, soaring towards the forest.

Link watched him go for a long moment until a sudden gust of wind stung his cheeks. He retreated inside, but left the window open a crack.

 

For the next ten minutes he had, once again, no idea what to do with himself. They seemed to drag on until he was aware of every breath he-- and Kaf-- took.  
Link made sure that Kaf was as comfortable as he could make him. He took the small coffee saucer from his desk and filled it with water from his bedside jug, placing it near his young friend. (Kaf had closed his eyes. Link didn’t like it.)  
Then, feeling he might as well make himself somewhat presentable, Link washed his hands clean with water from the jug as well, pouring the thin basin out the window when he made sure there was no one below. He took off the sweater that was covered with spots of Kaf’s blood and bundled it into the laundry chute, mentally apologizing to whoever would have to try and wash it out, and put on a clean shirt. He brushed and braided his hair.

When all of that was done and Kyp still hadn’t returned, Link sat down beside the radiator and began praying the rosary. His crucifix was reassuringly familiar under his fingers. It calmed him, and the noise seemed to keep Kaf more awake.

  
Link was not panicky by nature. He had had extensive training on various styles of combat in stressful situations, whether it be political or on a more literal battlefield. Still, it wasn’t often he’d been left alone in a room with an injured youth who he cared about and could do nothing for. It disoriented him. He disliked seeing anyone hurt if he could help it, worse when it was one of the crows.  

He had started conversing with them out of necessity months before. A science division potion had gone awry and left him physically shaped as a crow for several weeks; he hadn’t had much choice. When he had shifted back to his real form, the bird’s language had somehow carried over, and by then it had become a habit. Perhaps to his detriment, it quickly became more than a habit. Crows were intelligent, highly social creatures, and after an incident with a fallen nest and a stray cat that Link had swiftly chased off, the entire flock that roosted in the Order’s forest had “adopted” him.

There was of course a strictly professional base level to his interactions with them. He was cataloging and reporting the relevant information from their gossip to support various missions, and to further the wishes of Central. But in the interim he had grown attached to them on a personal level as well. He could, at the very least, admit that to himself.

(Some would say it was a pattern of behaviour. Link didn’t let himself consider that.)

As he finished the first Glory Be, aggressive taps sounded at the window.

  
Link jumped to his feet, one hand clutching his rosary. He hurriedly draped it over his head as he crossed the room and pulled open the window again. “You made it--”

Blackbirds poured into his room. Apparently when he’d told Kyp to get anyone the crow had decided to get _everyone._ In seconds, more than twenty birds were fluttering over the beds and the tops of headboards and the writing desks. Link stared around at them all, flummoxed for a moment, until a nip at his ear made him turn his head.  
Kym, Kaf’s sister from the same egg clutch, had landed on the sill just inside the window. Erkala had fluttered in beside her. Both female crows were agitated, their feathers puffed and wings half unfolded. Before Link could say anything to them, they were looking around the room, calling for Kaf.  
“He’s--” Link just pointed, deciding to not try and speak over the rising noise.  
Erkala and Kym both looked where he was pointing and immediately swooped over, landing on the floor around the chair and crying Kaf’s name. The sound broke Link’s heart.

Kyp flew in last and landed in an unsteady pile of feathers on the dresser. “Everything’s fine,” he blurted, righting himself and shaking it off. He looked at Link. “Got everyone. Couldn’t find Katakata. Where’s--”  
“Here,” Kym called from where she was pacing beside her mother on the floor. “We’re all here.”  
Kyp flapped over to Kaf’s chair immediately.

Link followed, and after hesitating for a second, lifted Kaf and his towel off of the chair and onto the ground so the others could be closer to their injured family member. Link knelt beside him. Half of the flock congregated around him, their feathers rustling and talons clicking on the floorboards.

Kym was still a bundle of fluttering nerves. As the others shuffled inwards, she moved aside, taking enough air to perch on the headboard of Link’s bed. She peered over Link’s shoulder anxiously.

  
Erkala remained on the floor and moved up closer to her son. She was a hooded crow, white feathers covering her shoulders, wings and head, standing out dramatically from the black of the rest of her. Kaf and Kym had inherited that from her, although not to such a degree. When she bent to groom some of Kaf’s head feathers, their colours lined up perfectly. She was crooning something.

Link felt a strong urge to turn away. Such grief should be private. He coughed into his hand, trying to be as quiet as he could.  
“Mother,” Kaf croaked, opening a bleary eye and looking towards her. He tried to roll from his back onto his side, and then cried out in pain.  
Erkala fluffed up in alarm and tried to get closer still. The flock rustled agitatedly around theml, a fluttering mass of ink and worried eyes.  
“Please don’t try to move right now,” Link cut in, “Let me help.” He reached forwards, careful not to accidentally budge any of the others, and gently lifted Kaf onto his side. Erkala ducked under his elbow as he did so. Link brought the saucer of water down from the chair in case Kaf wanted to drink.

But the young crow just turned his beak away. His breaths were starting to become shallower and erratic. “Stay out of the center,” he croaked. He started again, speaking to the worried faces on his left and all around him. “There’s an owl roost. They’ll--”  
At the word ‘owl’ a ripple of outrage and fear went through the flock. Kym, behind Link, cawed angrily.  
Kaf shivered. Impulsively, Link reached out to him and smoothed some of the feathers on his head.  
Kaf relaxed slightly at the touch. He nuzzled into Link’s hand for a second. “Thank you,” he warbled. “For bringing me.” He looked up at the others. “Be careful…”

Everyone waited for him to finish the thought but instead he only closed his eyes.

Between one second and another, Kaf stopped moving.

Link’s hand stilled on the young crow’s head, and then he retracted it quickly, feeling disrespectful. He swallowed but didn’t speak. The flock was quiet around the room.  
Erkala hopped forward from where she’d been standing, puffed up and anxious, at Link’s elbow. For a moment she looked down at her son. Then, gently, she used her beak to groom his chest feathers back into place over the wound. Without straightening back up she closed her eyes and began to croak thinly, over and over.  
The noise wasn’t a word, not like the usual ones that Link could understand from the birds. The magic didn’t translate it for him. But he recognized it nonetheless; it was the same when humans cried, after all. People said things without words. They might be crying _oh I am very much hurt_ , or _oh I am so frightened_ , or _oh, my poor heart is breaking_.  
“Sorrow," Erkala was croaking. “Sorrow.”  
“Sorrow,” Kym echoed after a moment. She fluttered down from her perch on the headboard to crouch beside her mother, huddling close to Erkala’s wing as though she were still a chick and could easily fit underneath it.    
Two by two and then all at once, the others joined the mourning call.

Link remained on his knees, hands uselessly at his sides. For the third time that morning, he was at a loss for what to do.

Kaf had always been quiet, even timid, but he’d loved his family—which he’d extended to Link. Link had known him since the crow had been featherless and squalling in the nest. Erkala and Katakata had trusted him to carry Kaf and his sisters in his pockets when they were still too young to fly. Kaf had only fledged properly, what was it, three months before?  
Link’s eyes stung. (The professional part of himself resented himself for it, quietly.)

In the growing cacophony it was only Kwaku, who had roosted on the door handle, who noticed the footsteps coming down the hallway. He paused in his call, listening, and then puffed up in alarm. “Warning!” He cried.  
As one the others silenced, turning towards the interruption. Link turned with them, eyes wide and brain momentarily slow.

Allen’s voice came through the doors, farther away but getting closer, jovial and way too chirpy for so early in the morning. “I don’t know, Tim usually comes to tell me if he shows up again-- maybe he’s just taking a nap in the forest.”  
“The hell he is,” Lavi’s voice replied, just as bizarrely cheerful. “That guy couldn’t take a rest even if the entire tree was taken out from--”  
The handle turned and Kwaku flew off it. Allen and Lavi swung the door open wide without thought, and then froze, going wide-eyed.

Dozens of black eyes stared back at them. Everyone was utterly silent.

  
Link pushed himself to his feet. “Is it urgent, Allen?” He asked, his voice flat.  
Lavi’s face had assumed the usual neutral expression of the Junior Bookman whose job was to catalogue everything he saw. Allen looked from Link, to the birds, to the open window, and then finally past Link to the small body on the floor. “I… no,” he answered, softer than he otherwise might have.  
“Will you please give us a moment, then.”  
Lavi spoke up. “Of course.” He was looking at Link with a confusing expression-- but then Link remembered that, yes, Lavi had been involved in the initial mishap as well. He wondered if the young man had ever had to deal with this kind of thing before. Link hoped not.  
“We’re sorry for disturbing you,” Lavi said, walking backwards out of the room and effectively pulling Allen along with an arm crossed in front of Allen’s chest.  
Allen nodded. He carefully pulled the door shut when both he and Lavi were once again in the hallway.

The door closed and latched with a soft click, leaving the flock alone.

 

*

 

Allen broached the subject again when they sat down to supper that evening. He was somewhat more hesitant than usual; or maybe he was being kind, which isn’t unusual at all. Link wasn’t sure. He looked over at Link from his fourth bowl of wonton soup, after gulping some of it down. “That crow you had in the towel earlier, were they hurt?”  
Link didn’t answer immediately. He raised his fork to his supper and then changed his mind, lowering it beside his plate. The gravy potatoes and beef and carrots, though cooked beautifully as ever in the Headquarters’ cafeteria, turned his stomach tonight. Picking at food was not at all dignified. “Yes,” he answered his charge without looking from his doomed dinner. “Quite badly, I’m afraid. He... passed away.” To say the words out loud stung less than Link thought they would; but then, he was still mostly numb to the concept.  
Allen blinked, alarm and worry and then finally understanding crossing his face. (Link had learned to read him well enough in the year or so he’d been assigned to the boy. He only hid his pain from others; not so well his other emotions.) “I’m sorry,” he offered. He did sound genuinely sorry.  
Link didn’t doubt he was. The depth of Allen’s compassion was a well-noted part of his record. Still, the expression of sympathy cut, somehow. He was glad he’d set his fork down or his hands might have shook. “Thank you,” he said, focusing on his drink instead. 

He had taken Kaf’s body deep into the woods that morning, under a guard of the other twenty or so birds who’d been with him when Kaf had passed. Erkala and Kym had ridden on his shoulders.  
They had all stopped when they’d reached the clearing with the roosting tree.

Crows didn’t have burial rituals of their own. They would have no way of moving the body. Usually after a loved one passed they would let nature “take them back”, and mark the site later with offerings of food and stones. And of course they would tell stories about the lost flock member up and down the tree. But they couldn’t let Kaf stay inside the building, and Link balked at the idea of just leaving him somewhere on the grounds to rot.

After the boys had left, Kym had asked Link how humans took care of their dead. Link had explained burial and cremation.  
The crows had looked at each other, and then at Erkala. Erkala had rustled her feathers into a smoother state, still looking down at her Kaf. “Better smoke than under the ground,” she’d finally said.  
The others had murmured agreement. So Link had carried him to the woods.

In the clearing surrounded by other crows, but far away from the roosting tree to be safe, Link had built a pyre about as high as his knees. He’d carefully placed Kaf’s body into it and then lit it with a flame feather.

The fire had taken him quickly. Link stood and watched the smoke and shimmering heat rise through the crisp air to the sky, carrying what was left of Kaf with it. The others perched in the trees and sturdy shrubs around him, quiet as they only ever were around death, and breathed together as one.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Much of the cool stuff here I stole from somewhere else, as per corvid tradition.  
> The crows say “Good eating” because in The Jungle Book, animals greet and say goodbye to each other with “Good hunting”. I figured carrion crows wouldn’t hunt so much as scavenge, hence “eating”. Kyp is a show-off who says it in German. (It’s not an exact translation, because Languages Are Hard™, but it was the closest translation I thought was useful.)
> 
> The crow names themselves I stole entirely from Clem Martini’s trilogy “[Feather and Bone: The Crow Chronicles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_and_Bone:_The_Crow_Chronicles#Crows)”, which is pretty great.  
> Also tried to work in as many crow puns as I could, e.g: “More than twenty” -> four and twenty blackbirds rhyme, and “a writing desk” because who knows why a raven is like one? Not Link, that’s for sure.
> 
> The title is from “[Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45236/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird), by Wallace Stevens, specifically stanza nine:  
>   
> “When the blackbird flew out of sight,  
> It marked the edge  
> Of one of many circles.” 
> 
> Thank you.


End file.
